"Captain, is it just me or does that suspiciously phallic ship approaching the masshole seem overly sexual?"

"Quiet ensign! That is the Liberace, do not comment on its behavior".

Challenging your assumptions is good for your health, good for your business, and good for your future. Stay skeptical but never undervalue the importance of a new and unfamiliar perspective.Imagination Fertilizer
Beauty may not save the world, but it's the only thing that can

Haven't managed to follow this entire thread, so sorry if this has already been mentioned, but:
What is the length of a wormhole?
Is a wormhole's length determined by the position of its connecting points, or a fixed length? Alternatively, does a wormhole have a length of 0? This would play a pretty major role in communications, IMO; not to mention the fuel costs of moving systems.

That which is not dead may eternal lie, and with strange eons even death may die.

The "internal" lenght, the time to traverse it, would be ~0 for gameplay purposes.
The fuel costs would come from the task of creating and maintaining wormhole connections.
(And travelling between them)
These costs would be determined by the distance between the entry points of the wormhole in normal space.

It would also only have an effect on communications if we say that it is so

Just trying to steer the conversation back on course after the masshole goodness.

mcsven kind of asked why we don't use the straight-out-of-Freelancer model, and I'd like to tell why we are trying to find something more complex. In Freelancer everything was static. Jumpgates were (mostly) for official channels; jumpholes - for illegal activities and exploration. Universe was known, and paths between stars were pre-coded. Since in LT everything is procedural and dynamic, you can't just script it. A mechanism is needed to create interesting star map geometry, and some sort of limitation for the maximum number of jump gates in the system is also needed. Also, one unstable jumphole was present in Freelancer (a completely scripted event), and we want the same kind of experience happening dynamically and giving us some degree of freedom (jumphole can collapse before we're done with our business, so we'll have to look for another way out of the system.

Charge mechanics was proposed for wormhole stability and capacity; frequency mechanics was proposed for interesting geography and stability, as well as all the other stuff.

Now, I believe that jumpholes should be two-way and frequency-based (that is, defined by the parent star, detectable by scanner etc). Just makes it simpler and cleaner. Maximum jumphole charge should be defined by percentage of frequency match between two ends of the jumphole. Unstable wormholes can collapse; stable jumpholes just require some time to recharge, with the most stable ones not needing more than several seconds. It should be possible to stabilise unstable jumphole (the idea came to me after seeing such things in the Broken Bonds mod for Freelancer). Jump gates should be limited in number by the same frequency-based mechanics; and jump drives should move individual ships around, be applicable only to really big ships and have at least some limitation to prevent their abuse (the simplest - the line-of-sight limitation where you can't jump to the system if another system lies in your way).

JoshParnell wrote:Yes! Temporary / hidden wormhole appearance is and will remain a feature ;) So I guess we're agreeing on that point? :)

While I sometimes disagree with what I suggested, in this case I do not. =P

You just never confirmed anything at all about interstellar travel so this is the first nugget of information period.

Again, here's another constant that clearly influences the equilibrium. Consider that at one extreme - 100 hidden wormholes in every system at all times, moving every 5 minutes or so - locking down becomes impossible. Now consider that at the other extreme - no temporary wormholes, ever, and never more than 2 wormholes per system - locking becomes possible. Apply intermediate value theorem, and profit :geek: System locking can be made to be as impossible or as trivial as you want. Similar arguments can be made for all of the relevant constants.

The distribution of stable vs. unstable (temporary) wormholes is a thing for the balancing phase.
It's just a number that will be adjusted to allow for some uncertainty while generally allowing the universe to have some structure and reliability.

I wouldn't take anyone serious who claims to know the right number now. =P

The big thing to me is the fact of the number's existence.

ThymineC wrote:Hm. I'd rather ships just emerged within the endpoint they come out of.

An exact point would cause problems.
Ships entering a wormhole at different speeds would collide.
It's safer to have the computer spread them out a little on arrival.
How little? Far enough to make the game work.

This is my oldest X3 script in action.
A neat ring of stationary lasertowers is installed around a jumpgate.
Bzzzzt.

The problem is: it's working too well. (I wasn't that concerned with balance back then =)
Nothing can survive coming out of a jumpgate like that. Perfect defense is perfect... and horrible game balance.

JoshParnell wrote:Honestly, despite all my arguments that it's hard to lock down space (and that we can make it arbitrarily hard), I'm not even sure why a skilled player being able to do so is such a bad thing. Owning a top-security bubble doesn't mean you've won the game. In an infinite universe, there is no 'perfect' play. There are only the goals that you set and whether or not you achieve them :)

That's the beauty of an infinite universe.
Even if the player is the biggest fish in the small pond that is this tiny corner of the universe, he is still somewhat insignificant on the greater scale. =)

ThymineC wrote:Hm. I'd rather ships just emerged within the endpoint they come out of.

An exact point would cause problems.
Ships entering a wormhole at different speeds would collide.
It's safer to have the computer spread them out a little on arrival.
How little? Far enough to make the game work.

I have gameplay ideas that rely on (or would at least be benefited by) ships appearing within wormhole endpoints.

The most straightforward solution is just to make wormhole endpoints pretty large, as Josh was saying before. That way multiple ships can pass through wormholes and be within endpoints without necessarily colliding.

ThymineC wrote:
I have gameplay ideas that rely on (or would at least be benefited by) ships appearing within wormhole endpoints.

The most straightforward solution is just to make wormhole endpoints pretty large, as Josh was saying before. That way multiple ships can pass through wormholes and be within endpoints without necessarily colliding.

its not that of an vital gameplay feature to justify such an limitation which maybe makes balance harder

ThymineC wrote:
I have gameplay ideas that rely on (or would at least be benefited by) ships appearing within wormhole endpoints.

The most straightforward solution is just to make wormhole endpoints pretty large, as Josh was saying before. That way multiple ships can pass through wormholes and be within endpoints without necessarily colliding.

its not that of an vital gameplay feature to justify such an limitation which maybe makes balance harder

It doesn't make it any harder to balance. As Josh said, "Well, whether you want to call it the radius of a wormhole or the max emerging distance isn't really important to me".

It's about as trivial an issue as whether a blueprints can do 100 runs and cost 1400 credits or do 1 run and cost 14 credits. You can make endpoints X m in radius and have ships spawn within Y metres of the perimeter, or you can make endpoints have an X+Y metre radius. Makes no difference to anything but my proposal.

ThymineC wrote:
It doesn't make it any harder to balance. As Josh said, "Well, whether you want to call it the radius of a wormhole or the max emerging distance isn't really important to me".

It's about as trivial an issue as whether a blueprints can do 100 runs and cost 1400 credits or do 1 run and cost 14 credits. You can make endpoints X m in radius and have ships spawn within Y metres of the perimeter, or you can make endpoints have an X+Y metre radius. Makes no difference to anything but my proposal.

im currently thinking that emergence radius != entry radius to the wormhole.
so the area you can come out in is larger than the area you can get into it